Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: This research was conducted to understand the effect of cognitive load on the occurrence of earworms. A go/no go task, a typical mind wandering method, was used to create different levels of cognitive load based on the difficulty of the task. We also used a control condition which more closely matched previous earworm studies. Both probe-caught and survey reports were used to measure earworms and mind wandering in the study. Earworms were not found to occur more often in the lower experimental levels of cognitive load but controls reported spending more time with earworms. This finding is mostly inconsistent with research on mind wandering which occurs in low cognitive load conditions when more resources are available. I theorize that earworms may occur with minimal resources where more complex thoughts in mind wandering cannot. Earworms may follow a U-shape continuum where earworms may occur in lower levels of cognitive load but must compete with the opportunity of other mind wandering topics. Future research should aim to use more moderate cognitive load tasks to better understand when the occurrence of earworms increases on the lower end of the cognitive load spectrum.
Author: Kayleigh I. Cutshaw
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3165041680